


The Worst First Date Imaginable

by tortitude



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley in Love (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley First Kiss (Good Omens), Bad First Date, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Declarations Of Love, Feelings Realization, First Dates, First Kiss, I Love You, I'm lousy at tags sorry, Light-Hearted, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22061470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortitude/pseuds/tortitude
Summary: Aziraphale has a startling realization and decides to do something about it. It... doesn't go as smoothly as he would have hoped it might.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 74
Collections: That Writing Place Fic Drop





	The Worst First Date Imaginable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheGypsyQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGypsyQueen/gifts).



> A gift for TheGypsyQueen!
> 
> Our friendship began when she had a desperate need to share an adorable piece of Good Omens fanart with whomever was online on our shared Discord server at the time. I raised my hand and it's been a beautiful mess ever since.
> 
> Thank you to a beautiful person all around, a fantastic writer, and hands-down THE best RP partner I've ever had the pleasure of writing with; thank you for putting up with me through my ups and downs and for always being there when I needed to ramble or vent; thank you for showing me how to be a better writer.
> 
> Truly, you are an inspiration.

It had been just over six thousand years since the angel Aziraphale had first made the acquaintance of a certain demon, that one day long ago in a garden. Yes, that Garden.  _ The _ Garden. And it was reasonable enough for any outsider to assume that he had actually been in love with Crowley for the better portion of that timespan. Aziraphale was, after all, a being of pure love; some would say this set him apart from most of his kindred, as it seemed that angels in general had a fair bit of trouble grasping the concept. They’d spent millennia preparing for war, and when Armageddon turned out to be a wash, the lot of them weren’t entirely sure what to do with themselves.

Not Aziraphale. If there was one angel under God’s command that understood love, it was this one. But being inundated with the emotion in all its various incarnations every moment of his existence had him somewhat nose-blind to this specific instance of love as it pertained to him. Or, rather, to him and Crowley. Six thousand years of it, and he was unaware of exactly how much he loved Crowley until precisely 8:42 a.m. on a Tuesday, six weeks after Armageddon failed to happen. He was halfway through a sip of cocoa when the realization dawned on him.

“Oh, dear,” he said aloud to his empty bookshop as he set the mug down carefully on a coaster, in order to give himself ample time to analyze this new revelation.

Of course, in hindsight, it was terribly obvious, now that he sat and thought about it. And there was quite a lot of thinking to do; the analysis of six thousand years of interactions took the better part of the rest of the day, and night had fallen before Aziraphale would stir from his spot, brush away the fine layer of dust that had settled over him as he’d contemplated this epiphany, and reach for the antique telephone, fingers trembling as he dialed an all-too-familiar mobile number, summarizing his conclusions in a hushed mutter as he waited for Crowley to pick up.

“Holy water… frightened me nearly out of my wits…” He remembered far too clearly Crowley’s ongoing quest for that dangerous substance, the thing that would not merely discorporate him, but obliterate him from existence entirely. Upon first hearing of his wish, Aziraphale had not recognized the feeling for what it was, as true fear was something wholly unfamiliar to him. His refusal to provide this one simple thing had caused a rift between them that had become so impossible for the angel to bear that he had eventually given in, handing over a Thermos full of the stuff as if it were a bomb about to explode. In that moment, it had become more important for him to exercise a bit of trust in the demon and to regain his favor than to allow the rift to grow a millimeter wider.

This was, of course, a very big step. Demons, by their very nature, are untrustworthy, and Aziraphale saw in Crowley something worth trusting. Yet even then, the trust had not been unconditional; despite everything within him craving just a few more moments with Crowley, despite being a breath away from taking him up on his offer to go anywhere he wanted to go (miracles be damned, he wanted to take the scenic route with  _ Crowley _ by his side), still he had made that difficult choice to get out of the car.

_ “You go too fast for me, Crowley.” _

It was all so clear now, of course, but in that moment he hadn’t been ready to see it for what it was. In that direction lay a whole new level of fear, an unknown that Aziraphale had needed several more decades to prepare to face. He had not yet been ready to dive into that particular abyss, to allow himself to fall headfirst in love with a demon who might very well be on the verge of trying to destroy himself. And he was  _ most definitely _ not ready to deal with a universe in which Crowley no longer existed.

The rift still yawned before them. But at least with that half-step it had stopped growing, and, with time, began to close. And then there was Armageddon, and the mistrust began anew, this time on both sides, and had very nearly reopened that rift. They were still playing the parts of soldiers on their respective sides, and despite their plan to work together to sabotage the Antichrist, they had each kept certain secrets from one another, clinging too tightly to the mutual suspicion expected of either of them by their head offices.

But now…

Now there were no sides. Perhaps one day the divide between good and evil would grow again, and another attempt at Armageddon would be made. But  _ now _ … now they were on their own side.

“Angel!”

Aziraphale’s heart leapt at the greeting. Crowley’s voice rang out over the line, high-pitched and warm and… dare he say, happy to speak to him? There was a great deal of background noise, wherever Crowley was, perhaps a crowded street in the middle of downtown or some other heavily populated venue.

“Crowley…” Aziraphale said, the name coming breathily to his lips in the light of his realization. It started out strong and faded to a whisper by the second syllable as the demon’s voice struck him as physically as if it had been a speeding lorry. After that, well, he sort of lost track of what to say next.

“You there? Bloody hell, thought they’d fixed the network by now,” he could hear Crowley mutter. “Call me back later?” he said, loudly, as if trying to talk over the crowd or to be heard over whatever was interfering with the mobile network.

“No! I mean, yes. Yes, I’m here. No, don’t hang up. Please.” Aziraphale made a face, and found himself wishing he’d rehearsed this conversation in a little more detail.

“Right… there you are, angel. What’s happening?”

“Oh, you know…” This was all going rather dreadfully. “Quiet evening at the bookshop. Nothing particularly exciting.” An outburst of laughter and a few loud cheers somewhere in Crowley’s immediate vicinity had the angel holding the phone away from his ear for a brief second. “Dear me. Not exactly quiet where you are, though, is it?”

“Ahhh, you know…” It was funny how they had started to share similar speech patterns within their own individual styles; though that wasn’t surprising, considering the extent of their friendship. “Lots to celebrate, right? Thwarting Armageddon and all that?”

“It’s been six weeks, Crowley…”

“Yeah, well, thwarting Armageddon is sort of a big thing to celebrate! Could reasonably take six weeks. Or more.”

“Well… yes, I suppose you’re right about that.” He cleared his throat and only just remembered his cocoa, which had solidified by that point. “Sounds like you’re having quite a good time.” He wanted to see Crowley, to discuss his epiphany, as it seemed the proper thing to do, but figuring out how to go about it seemed a monumental task.

“Yeah, it’s alright, I guess. ‘Bout to head to another pub. We’ve been to three so far. It’s called a ‘crawl,’ or so it seems.”

“‘We?’” Well, that was a strange feeling that seemed to stab upwards from the gut, under the ribcage, and straight into his heart. “Who’s ‘we?’” There was a strange sharpness to his voice that sounded foreign coming from him.

Crowley laughed on the other end of the line, seeming amused. “What… you jealous?”

“Of  _ course _ not,” Aziraphale snapped a bit too suddenly. Though, he supposed when he analyzed that feeling, that had to be what it was.

_ “‘We’ _ is nobody. Just the crowd I got swept up in.” The tone of amusement was still there, taunting Aziraphale.

“Well, then. Perhaps I… I might join you.”

There was a cackle on the other end. “Angel, I don’t think you’d enjoy it much. Far cry from your quiet bookshop, it is. Loud and noisy and I think there’s a concert at the next one. Maybe even  _ dancing _ , and I  _ know _ angels don’t dance.”

“I like music just fine, Crowley. And I quite like dancing, thank you very much.”

Another cackle. “There’s no room for the  _ gavotte _ at any sort of pub in London.”

Aziraphale sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m coming with you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Alright, alright, fine. If you…”

“... insist.” Suddenly Aziraphale was just  _ there _ , and Crowley was staring at him dumbfounded as people poured out of the pub behind him. “Really?  _ Really? _ You used a  _ miracle _ to get here?” he said, pressing the ‘End Call’ button on the still-active line on his mobile. “Isn’t that a bit frivolous?”

Aziraphale lifted his chin and straightened out his coat, the same one he’d worn for nearly two hundred years. It looked terribly out of place amongst all the more modern things the passers-by were wearing on their way to the next pub. “Frivolous is in the eye of the beholder, and believe you me, I don’t see this as frivolous at all.”

“Whatever floats your boat, angel,” Crowley said with a shrug, shoving his phone in the pocket of his trousers.  _ How, _ Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure, and he found himself staring a bit too overlong at how tightly those trousers clung to him, as if he were noticing it for the first time. The temperature of the air felt like it rose several degrees in an instant. If he were blushing, Crowley didn’t seem to notice.

“Right, then. Shall we?” He turned and sauntered in the direction the crowd was headed, leaving Aziraphale to watch as he walked several paces behind him, adjusting the collar around his neck that had suddenly gone too tight.

Even indoors, even in the dimly lit pub where his eyes would likely go unnoticed, Crowley kept his shades on. This one seemed far louder than the one in which Aziraphale had interrupted him with the phone call, even without factoring in the band playing. The angel made a face almost as soon as he entered the pub, resisting the urge to cover his ears. It could hardly be called music, at least according to him. But judging from the way Crowley moved and drummed his fingers on the table when they sat and waited for their drinks, he was enjoying it, and therefore Aziraphale would endure it, if only to gain a better understanding of the demon which now held such a great deal of fascination for him.

They were so different. Was this a case of that saying that humans were so fond of?  _ Opposites attract, _ and all that? How on earth, in heaven and hell and the universe combined could Aziraphale have managed to fall in love with someone so completely different; someone that was, in fact, his very antithesis?

Crowley was in his element, and Aziraphale was  _ bored. _ Crowley had made acquaintances throughout the night, and kept leaving the table to go socialize, while Aziraphale sat alone and nursed a glass of red wine and continued to look entirely out of place. His mood soured while Crowley’s soared, and he  _ hated _ the band that was playing, some sort of punk rock band that sounded a great deal like Velvet Underground (Crowley had been right about that one on two accounts: they certainly weren’t bebop, and he hadn’t liked them at all once he gave them a listen). Aziraphale, in a nutshell, felt rather alone and abandoned tonight by the being he’d wanted to spend time with more than any other, on the night he’d been trying to work out perhaps the most important revelation he’d ever had in six thousand years.

The crowd started to thin out, and Crowley sauntered back over to their table, downing one last shot of whatever he had been drinking and not looking remotely close to drunk. “Come on, angel, they’re moving on to the next one,” he said, taking what was left of Aziraphale’s wine and drinking that as well, setting the glass down with a smack of his lips.

“You know, that’s quite alright, I think I’d best be going,” Aziraphale snapped as he stood in a huff, dusting off his waistcoat and looking like he’d just tasted something dreadful.

Crowley held up both hands in an ‘I surrender’ sort of gesture. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, angel, what’s the matter with you all of a sudden?”

“What’s the  _ matter? _ ” Aziraphale sputtered. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Pardon me.” He brushed past the demon and made his way outside. Certainly, he could have miracled out, but part of him wanted to see if he would be followed.

He was.

“Aziraphale, wait!”

The angel came to a stop halfway down the street upon hearing his name. It was quieter here, practically deserted, and the relative silence was a bit of a relief in comparison to the near-anxiety the chaos of the pub had given him. He turned to face Crowley, who was no longer sauntering or swaggering, but walking with intensity and purpose towards him.

“You’re a shit liar, you know,” Crowley said when he’d caught up. Aziraphale just folded his arms across his chest and glared at him. “Alright, alright. What did I do?” Again, Crowley put his hands up in surrender as he spoke.

The outburst came before Aziraphale could stop it, or even think about what it was he wanted to say. “Put quite simply, you’ve made this, without a doubt, the  _ worst _ first date imaginable!”

Crowley looked stunned, his hands slowly lowering to his sides as he stared at Aziraphale for a good long minute.

And then he laughed, long and loud, a good belly laugh, which only served to irritate Aziraphale further.

“First date? Angel, this isn’t our first date,” Crowley said through continued laughter when he’d regained a modicum of composure, enough to speak, at least.

_ That _ caused Aziraphale to deflate somewhat. “Oh,” he said, his voice quiet and more than a little disappointed.

“Yeah, definitely not,” Crowley reiterated with a toss of his head.

“Well, you don’t have to rub it in,” Aziraphale said irritably. “I’d hoped…” He’d hoped, that was exactly the problem, and falsely, it seemed. Six thousand years of tenuous friendship were now balanced precariously on the edge of the waste bin, teetering towards the center rather than safely out, all because Aziraphale had to go and get  _ feelings _ about it and put Crowley on the spot and now it was all in jeopardy thanks to false hope.

“Not our first,” Crowley said, and just when Aziraphale was about to get irritable again, he continued. “Our first would have to be… Rome, if I had to put a finger on it. Yeah. Petronius’s, remember? The oysters?”

“That was a date?” Aziraphale blinked incredulously.

“Wasn’t it?” Crowley’s eyebrows furrowed over the top of his shades. “If  _ that _ wasn’t, then at the very least, the Ritz certainly was, yeah?”

“Oh… oh, I suppose it was, now that you mention it…” And now it was Aziraphale that frowned, once again analyzing a number of their encounters over the centuries. Come to think of it, quite a bit of their time spent together since that first time in Rome had, in fact, been on what the average human would consider a date. “Good Lord,” he murmured thoughtfully. “Have we really been… dating that long? I certainly would have liked to have been informed before I made a complete idiot of myself…”

“Oh, angel, you’re not a complete idiot. Only a bit of one.” Crowley’s easy grin was teasing; it was insufferable to think that he’d known this all along and failed to let Aziraphale in on the news.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale chided, though his irritation seemed to have mostly subsided. He sighed, looking away at the crowd piling into a pub much further down the street. “So… are we…” He wasn’t quite sure how to finish that question.

“Dating? Together? A couple? Why, do you angels go in for that sort of thing?” Crowley’s expression was difficult to read behind the shades.

“Not most angels, no…” He’d always been different, however, and times  _ were _ changing, after all. He squinted at Crowley. “Why… do you  _ demons _ go in for that sort of thing?” he parroted back at him.

“Not most demons, no. But I’ll tell you this.” Crowley reached up and lowered his shades, peering out over the tops of them. It didn’t seem to help matters much; Aziraphale was still having trouble getting a read on him. “You think I call you ‘angel’ just because it’s what you are? What, you don’t see me calling every bloody person that walks by, ‘oi, you, human,’ do you? Yes, you’re  _ an _ angel, but if you ask me, you’re  _ my _ angel. Always have been.”

“ _ Your _ angel?” Oh, the way his angelic heart seemed to soar at those words. He wondered if Crowley could see his face physically light up.

“Yeah. My angel. If that’s alright with--”

Crowley was unable to finish that thought out loud because Aziraphale had interrupted it, much to his own surprise as Crowley’s, with a kiss, long and deep and pure. If another angel had happened upon the scene, it would be met with a certain amount of disgust, as it was when Gabriel had come across Aziraphale eating, another human thing that Aziraphale was quite fond of. It was simply another way of… what were those words Gabriel had used? Polluting his body with gross matter? Engaging in something so very human, at the very least, and with a  _ demon _ to boot.

And Aziraphale, for his part, did not care one bit as Crowley slipped his arms around him at last, holding him close as they kissed for what felt like hours on the mostly-deserted sidewalk. He didn’t want it to end, but soon enough it did, and they gazed at each other breathlessly.

“So that’s how it’s gonna be from now on, eh?” Crowley asked when he’d recovered; the kiss had caught him off-guard at least as much as it had Aziraphale.

“If that’s alright with--” And this time it was Aziraphale that was interrupted by a second, briefer kiss that was no less sweet.

“‘S’alright with me, yeah,” Crowley replied, looking a little lost and unnervingly innocent when they parted.

“Alright then,” Aziraphale murmured, his own expression full of wonder and disbelief that this was  _ actually _ happening. This wasn’t meant for angels, nor demons, and certainly not for the pair of them combined. He reached a hand up to cup the demon’s jaw, stroking his cheek with a thumb. He swallowed hard, and then he said it at last.

“I love you, Crowley.”

Sharing his revelation with the object of it felt monumental to him, and he found himself holding his breath, waiting for a response.

“Well… ‘bout time you figured that out, innit?” Again, Crowley peered out over the top of his dark lenses, amusement in his eyes. “Known that for ages now… just waiting for you to catch up.”

“Stop it…” Aziraphale protested bashfully, though the grin on his face was absolutely and wholly becoming of the cherub that he was. Then he looked at Crowley expectantly. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“What do you mean, ‘well, what?’” he sputtered, a bit crossly. “You can’t possibly expect me to just come out with a confession like  _ that _ and not give me some sort of proper reply!”

“What, that I love you too? Come off it, I thought that was obvious and didn’t need to be said!”

“Oh…” Aziraphale deflated. “Still… this is rather new territory, so humor me, if you don’t mind.”

“Fine…” Crowley groaned, with more than a little exasperation. “Love you too, angel. There, ya happy now?”

There was a measure of victory in Aziraphale’s sigh. “Quite. Thank you.”

“Good. Can’t be having any unhappy angels, now, can we?” His easy grin was back, and all felt right with the world again.

Then there was a moment of awkward silence. “Alright then,” Aziraphale said, shuffling his feet. “What now?”

Crowley shrugged and pushed his shades up once again. “Well… humans have been figuring that part out for as long as they’ve been around. Don’t suppose it’ll be too hard for the two of us to come ‘round to it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and crooked his elbow out to Aziraphale. “Let’s have a walk, then, shall we? We’ll figure it out.”

“Right. I suppose we shall.” The angel slipped a hand around the offered arm, giving it a gentle squeeze as if to remind himself that this was  _ real _ , and they strolled towards nowhere in particular. The pair made a curious sight, the old-fashioned and the ultra-modern, but if anyone paid them any mind, they couldn’t be bothered to care.

They had each other. They’d  _ always _ had each other, through the good times and the dark ones, and now they knew they always  _ would _ .


End file.
